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Showing posts from January, 2011

Kruger wrapped!

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Last night I was just too tired from driving all day to write the blog so here is yesterday's story. We decided that we would not set an alarm to wake up but would just get up after we had enough sleep in anticipation of the long drive home. As always though, when there is an opportunity to sleep late, it is wasted. We were up at 5 am, washed ourselves, packed the car, had breakfast and were on the road by 05:50. It was raining so I did not have not have too many hopes of seeing much. Along the road from Skukuza to Lower Sabie we saw some impala as usual, then a hyena on a mission down the road (it was not interested in having photos taken at all) and then we saw a huge herd of elephants cavorting in the fast flowing Sabie River. At first I thought the elephants were in trouble in the water but on watching them it was obvious that they were having a whale of a time in the current. After the fun of the elephants everything settled down again to quiet searching for animals. There

Lions and monkeys

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Last night we went on the night drive. It had been my choice to go on the later drive instead of the sunset drive and I kicked myself after our drive as the early one had seen lions but that is how it goes. Our drive was in my estimation pretty good. We saw quite a few elephants, impala (of course), a giant eagle owl (sorry Mom no photo), a hyena, a white faced owl, a honey badger (!!!!!!) and the Easter bunny. It was a fairly quiet drive both on and off the truck. On the truck was the driver (called Lettuce), Charles and myself and another couple. Off the truck there was not too much going on but then how many game drives have we done that have been like this. For me the night drive is always great animals or no animals. It is just so wonderful to be out in the bush at a time when we are not normally allowed to wander around. Below are some photos (not good ones) from the drive. Every day we have headed off in a different direction and today was no exception. I was getting prett

Rhino Day

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Early this morning we packed our breakfast goodies and slowly made our way to Tshokwane. The day started off well with a civet running across the road in front of the car and a rhino crossed in front not much later. We headed north and enjoyed the slow progression of night to day and on a loop road came across two more rhino, one of which was still sleeping and the other was barely awake. Back on the main road were three more rhino, two sleeping and one patrolling the road. We sat and had a cup of coffee while watching them and then more people arrived. There we were thinking this was a wonderful way to spend the morning when a guy with his caravan came along and asked if we had seen the lions on the road 10 km back! Sometimes the luck is just not there. We arrived at Tshokwane at 06:50 and had to wait until 7:00 to get a gas bottle and skottel on which to cook our scrambled eggs. It was very quiet there with just the staff cleaning up from the baboons' party last night and about

Kruger in the Summer

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I normally don't write a blog in Kruger but since I am not here with my family and they want to know all about it here it is. At 03:20 yesterday morning I gave up trying to sleep and got up to get ready for the trip to Kruger. A quick shower and kettle boiled and we were on our way a few minutes after 4am. The N2 north was fairly quiet and we got to the Total garage at Hluhluwe for our breakfast stop in good time. Going through the SA border into Swaziland was an absolute breeze but the going through Swaziland was very slow. The potholes on the road from Big Bend to Siteki were big enough to swallow my car! They were bad last year and since nothing has been done about them they are even worse this time around. The border post from Swaziland back into SA was also pretty much a breeze but we did not get a little slip to present at the Customs inspection but with some persuasion we were allowed to go through without having to go back and get one. By this time the petrol in the car wa